


do no harm.

by aliiceangeliic



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Death, Gen, POV Second Person, Survivor Guilt, Trauma, Vague Gore, guilt in general
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-13
Updated: 2016-08-13
Packaged: 2018-08-08 13:41:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7759972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aliiceangeliic/pseuds/aliiceangeliic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>you used to believe in ethics.</p>
            </blockquote>





	do no harm.

**i.** you used to believe in ethics. do no harm, work to heal not to hurt, treat them with respect, do not practice while emotionally compromised. people may have been puzzles, but that was only in social matters. fingers connect to hands connect to wrists connect to arms. organ by organ. nerve to nerve. bone to ligament to bone. simple things to fix when its broken, but with care and kindness. that’s what you thought. 

**ii.** people are dying all around you. buildings crumble and roads shatter and you cannot say you will not work when emotionally compromised because the world doesn’t care for what you feel when people are bleeding out in your arms and you’re the only one capable of undoing it except you’re not because your hands keep shaking and your vision blurs behind the tears but no one else can do this. no one else is alive to do this. your mother asks you to smile one last time. you think that’s what dooms her under your hands. 

**iii.** people are dying by the day and you’re asked to examine corpses in the morgue because some weapons are different, have different effects. you can’t help but think it’s cruel- they suffered enough in life and now you get to|have to play around with what’s left behind to try and save others. part of you worries that you take such glee in it- human beings are a puzzle, and you had thought you knew the physical part well but you were so wrong! and now you get to fix it! you wash your hands and red is still there. 

**iv.** people are injured and you are running out of supplies. you know it hurts, you know they need blood transfusions and new bandages and medicine and god what you would give for anesthetic but you don’t have it and you wish you did but chorus is in the middle of nowhere and suppliers aren’t going to magically appear. how locus manages to scrounge things up for you every now and again you don’t know, but you’d kiss him for it if he wasn’t such an unresponsive brick. it’s cruel of you to respond harshly to your patients’ requests. god knows you want to help them all you can but you simply can’t. they need blood, their legs hurt, they don’t want a prosthetic- what else can you do, then?! what else but let them sit in suffering? at least in your harshness they can breathe a little longer. but these days you don’t know if this is a cruelty or a kindness. 

**v.** his name is zachary miller and he just helped massacre your friends. your only living friends. hes laughing and joking when you approach and part of you thinks ‘good’ because then he won’t expect it. it hasn’t been that long, barely even a couple hours and when you close your eyes you still see ashley dissolving into cinders, hear eddie’s pained screams- there weren’t even bodies to bury and he’s laughing. he’s proud of what he did and how not even agent carolina get anything out of him. but humans are puzzles and if there’s one thing you’ve learned by now, it’s how to break puzzles. he screams the whole time, and you let him even as you take away piece by piece. bone from bone. organ from organ. he still screams as you sing, and you don’t know why you sing. you don’t know why you do anything. you just want him to hurt, to feel terror and you want him to know the pain of death but you don’t want to let his life slip away and you’re far more crueler than you used to be, you know this better than anyone. he screams, and you smile when he tells you everything. he screams when you put him back together too. when you look at your reflection against the polished walls, do you see yourself? or do you see what you’ve become? 

**vi.** you used to believe in ethics. but then war broke out and you were forced, bit by broken bit, to give that all up. no, not forced- some you gave up of your own free will to survive and to ensure the survival of others. some you enjoyed giving up- though you regret that enjoyment, certainly. when you look in the mirror you do not see emily grey, proud daughter and sister. you see emily grey, deranged doctor. emily grey, orphan. emily grey, alone. you used to believe in ethics, and you will teach those who come to you to learn the same things you were taught- you will tell them how to survive without giving those up, how to stand tall and still see yourself in the mirror no matter what the world throws at you. but you have no right to do this anymore. so when the next generation is trained and taught, doctor emily grey will no longer exist. emily will live out her life without touching a scalpel again. you’ve decided this long ago. you still see red when you look at your hands.

**Author's Note:**

> Cross-posted from an RP blog- though I'd rather keep that private, thank you.


End file.
